Mablung

Any of the thicker braided polyester or braided nylon threads should suffice. There are a lot of quality options. Plenty of good twisted threads as well, if you prefer twisted. Ritza, Maine Thread Co., various Asian twisted brands.

Beyond tanning the leather, sunshine will also dry it out, which is why applying oil is necessary. I learned that the hard way with a coaster I accidentally left on a windowsill in the sun. Turned it a nice tan, but now it’s stiff. If you’re interested in learning about effects of different oils on leather, look at the sticky thread @fredk and @SUP created in I think the Dyes thread about an experiment they’re conducting using different oils on leather placed in different environments to observe the effects. I think olive oil is one of the oils, though I’m not sure off the top of my head. Regardless, it’s an interesting experiment.

Given the means to get a new knife, “Because I don’t have [insert option] and want one” is good enough, lol.

Huh, I thought he made his stuff with 154CM. Apparently he switched.

Drifting the thread just slightly: Is there a particular reason you want MagnaCut steel specifically? The stuff is good, but there are other steels that will work for leatherwork just as well, especially the older tool steels. This sort of cutting requires a lot of regular stropping, and for edge retention, the biggest thing is heat treatment. A lot of other steels, stainless and “high carbon” tool alike, will do the job just as well, for less money (and with an easier time finding the tools).

The pre-curve bit is a lot more about creating a shortcut around the break-in process for a standard gun belt going through one’s belt loops. I doubt strongly that it makes a considerable difference for a separate cartridge gun belt, though I could be wrong. I’d not worry about it, personally. Now to fit the loops along the belt, if you go ahead and pre-curve it, I’d be more inclined to simply leave off the loops along the middle couple inches of the belt. That’s where the curve will be, so just leave those out, unless it’s critical that the loops cover the whole surface.

You can use it for the long lines like you’re talking about, although it is a figure carving tool, more than anything, but that’ll get tedious.

The Tandy double beveler is a walking tool, or so they say. It’s technically possible to get a clean bevel with it (I’ve seen the manager of my local store do it in a class I took), but how anyone gets good enough with it short of asylum-worthy obsession with it, I couldn’t tell you.

Almost assuredly.

You, sir, are a rotten egg.

I like it. That insert is a neat idea, too.

Fredk has this right, I think. Not sure there’s any other belt design that could conceivably qualify. Western gun belt rigs and ranger belts use essentially the same construction, with the main belt piece and billets.

Items for Sale, Services, and Wanted are all subforums under Marketplace. Open the Items for Sale subforum to find the machinery one I mentioned.

Marketplace > Items for Sale > Machinery—Sewing or Stitching.

Couldn’t have said it better. I work in a professional field and cringe whenever someone purportedly selling to that audience writes poorly, from basic matters of style to tone to word choice. Quality writing (which doesn’t have to be showy) makes a critical difference, especially for those selling to people with a grasp of communication exceeding that required to talk like a Zoomer on a YouTube short.

I made some sandals recently with 9 oz. shoulder as the sole. For casual use, that’s fine, esp if one glues a piece of rubber to the bottom. Don’t bother with a shank or stacking more layers than necessary. All that will do is make it hard, inflexible, and uncomfortable. Shanks are there for shoes with a separate heel where the sole drops to the toe, like in a dress shoe or cowboy boot. I guess some high-heeled “sandals” may have a shank, but it wouldn’t be straight like a popsicle stick anyway. Get that basic pattern, and then the world is your oyster as far as design goes. A good pattern to start with, if you don’t have one already, is the Dieselpunk.ro pattern.

For your purposes, an Economy grade 8-10 oz. double shoulder from Tandy would be perfect. Not going to ever win any beauty awards or take tooling well, but that’s okay for this purpose. It’ll take a beating and keep on going, which it sounds is the primary characteristic you care about.

Had never thought of using acetone. Thanks for sharing, @Littlef

It’s the same one I posted a while back, when I first bought and sharpened it. I’ll take some closeup pictures of the handle soon, hopefully tonight.

Small pruning saw? I like the colors.

I think it has a small brass pin peened over the handle as well, but I don’t recall off the top of my head. I’ll look at it tonight.

It’s not even close to that loose, mostly just a little displaced and allowing the tang to wiggle ever so slightly. I’m not worried about it, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Does anyone have a good line on methods to tighten up a ferrule that's working loose? I have a bad habit of pressing down a little firmly on my round knife and have loosened the ferrule slightly from leverage. It's not even close to becoming a problem, but I want to know how to fix it in case I can avoid a future problem and so that I can fix a problem that arises. I've looked through here but haven't found anything addressing this particular point, so figured I'd ask in case someone could save me a little time searching hither and yon without really knowing what I'm looking for.

Thanks, all! @Aventurine and @Aven, he really liked them, and so did his mom (my sister). I look forward to seeing them get scuffed, dirty, and well-used. Thanks, @TonyV. I look forward to making many more for him!

If you look in the Dyes, etc., subforum, you’ll find a lot of discussion of this issue and related issues.